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"I hope you can hook me up, if you know what I'm saying, the next rime I chug
through Santa Cruz. And please be in touch if you're so moved. Good luck."
-Neal Pollack
AUTHORS ANONYMOUS
Ecstatic, pleased to meet you, and fearless
Once Again, 8 Exciting Pages!
Inanimate Objects!
By Henry Jones (Stick with this one. It is really great.)
So eleven o'clock, drunk, in a late diner chain. A bitter middle-
aged failure of a waitress brings us our food and coffee with a side
of resentment but fuck her, y'know? It's your fucking job. Me and
George get the five-stack, Sam gets a burger, and Ben gets a Belgian
waffle 'cause he's fancy like that. Oh and Ben's girlfriend predictably
gets an assortment of fruit or something, barely picks at it. I hate that
girl. Doesn't say a fucking word to us; just whispers shit in Ben's ear.
Fuck her too. Some old couple a couple booths down keeps shooting
us looks 'cause we're being pretty obnoxious on account of all the
booze we have in our heads — except for Ben and probably Marcy
because Ben has tuberculosis and is on serious medication for it so
he's our default driver for the next few months. Marcy's not drinking
because she's unoriginal. George says, not completely out of context,
'if you were inanimate, what would you be?" Sawyer says a gondola,
Ben's not sure but he's thinking, Marcy refuses to consider it, Sam
says a bottle rocket and I don't know Sam too well and I don't quite
know what he's getting at with that but it seems like a good answer. I
say a pontoon plane, but I don't really mean it. George says he'd be a
ridiculously giant statue of himself in a despotic pose that subversive
uprisers, when they tear it down, would be about as tall as the width
of his head.
Well put. George hands me his flask under the table — he's so
fucking classy, George is — and as stealthily as I can I take a few
healthy gulps pretending not to notice that Marcy's looking right at
me and I can tell she thinks I'm a sleaze and so I take a couple more
healthy gulps, 'cause fuck her, y'know? Sawyer says my name and
takes the flask away from me 'cause I'm not being very discreet
with it and after a quick nip he hands it back on over to George who
helps himself a bit to it and by this time I see the old couple a couple 3 |
booths down are really shooting the daggers our way but they should
really learn to mind their own fucking business. Mrs. Sunshine, our „
waitress, drops the check on our table without saying anything and
heads off to the old couple and I think fuck; that was a lot of whisky
I just drank.
(Whoa Dude! is right. More on page 6)
---
In this Issue!
A failed Interview...
Eric Schlosser is the author of the well-
known and widely acclaimed book, Fast
Food Nation. His new book is called Reefer
Madness. He is a journalistic writer, a documentor and a funnelor of facts and sources.
He is professional, but also charming, persuasive, able to cite facts and statistics in a
convincing way, is down-to-earth, is attractive, smokes pot.
We've never done interviews before, but,
we thought, how hard could it be?
(Take Pity on us, We are not men or Devo. Page 3)
Vikings and tanks...
Alright: if a man wearing a cape and a
Viking hat trying to recover two pounds
of uncut hashish buried right smack in the
middle of the Potsdam conference between
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin doesn't
strike you as entertainment, or as sounding
similar to one of your own dreams, then I'm
sorry, I don't know what to tell you. Because
it only gets better.
(Tanks What Tanks? Check out page 5)
And the result of our Questionnaire...
Freud is like a mother to me.
Some of you lovable readers were kind
enough to return the back page of last issue
with your humble pictures scrawled in the
boxes. These are not the same logo centric
wise asses that chose to write in the boxes
when the directions explicitly called for
pictures.
(The Back Page. Where it should be)
Interview: JT Leroy!
AA: After writing your two books, Sarah and The
Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, you now have your
band Thistle, which rocks by the way, how did the band
come about?
JT: All of us, Astor, Speedie and me are a family and
have lived together for about 6-7 years. We met through
various circles, and we started living together in our flat
with other folks, but the other folks always came and
went. Speedie got pregnant 6 years ago and that really
was the cohesive tape for the family border to solidify.
There were suddenly rules to abide by, boundaries and
I had to choose this family or the street. I think I chose
wisely. But sometimes I have to re-dedicate my choice.
We are all massive music fans, and we always fooled
around writing songs together. The way I threw myself
into being a better writer, Astor got really expert at Pro-
tools, a form of home recording on a computer. So he
started making demos of our songs.
Speedie is a muse for us, we write for her voice. She
did not like being our singer, we would drag her away
from whatever she was doing, throw up a shitty mic and
have her sing. She would curse us out, (we have it on
tape, it is really funny, like the Oasis brother's fighting) It
really was like we were the mad scientists experimenting.
Astor kept slaving and away and he'd play it for us —
what he pulled together and it was like, dang, this is pretty
good! And we'd play it for folks, like Shirley Manson
and they'd say, why aren't you getting it out there? And
we finally said, yeah, sure, why aren't we? Speedie was
like, do it without me, fuck y'all. She is a very forceful
personality and she was not into being drawn into this and
all it involves. But folks really responded to her voice, her
singing, but she did not feel it was what she wanted to do,
she felt like she was not a 'real' singer.
So we auditioned all these other singers, one woman
with a kick ass show stopping voice, from RENT, that
wanted to do it, but she sang the songs like Broadway
show tunes. There was a vulnerability missing. We
missed that quality that Speedie has in her voice and so
did everyone else we played it for. We tried other ideas,
Linda Perry came up with the idea of having all these
other musicians cover our songs for a record, and that
was exciting for a bit. But we were writing more, taking
it more seriously, getting more feedback from these home
demos, and Speedie was gaining self-confidence, and we
started getting courted by different management folks and
it was just obvious. This one management team, that we
ended up not working with, but they helped us realize, we
really have all the pieces for the most part, let's do it, little
Rascal style, put the show on our own dang selves!
AA: What musical, personal, or literary influences do
you see driving the sound and feeling behind the music
of Thistle?
(The Answer and More Answers on page 3)

"I hope you can hook me up, if you know what I'm saying, the next rime I chug
through Santa Cruz. And please be in touch if you're so moved. Good luck."
-Neal Pollack
AUTHORS ANONYMOUS
Ecstatic, pleased to meet you, and fearless
Once Again, 8 Exciting Pages!
Inanimate Objects!
By Henry Jones (Stick with this one. It is really great.)
So eleven o'clock, drunk, in a late diner chain. A bitter middle-
aged failure of a waitress brings us our food and coffee with a side
of resentment but fuck her, y'know? It's your fucking job. Me and
George get the five-stack, Sam gets a burger, and Ben gets a Belgian
waffle 'cause he's fancy like that. Oh and Ben's girlfriend predictably
gets an assortment of fruit or something, barely picks at it. I hate that
girl. Doesn't say a fucking word to us; just whispers shit in Ben's ear.
Fuck her too. Some old couple a couple booths down keeps shooting
us looks 'cause we're being pretty obnoxious on account of all the
booze we have in our heads — except for Ben and probably Marcy
because Ben has tuberculosis and is on serious medication for it so
he's our default driver for the next few months. Marcy's not drinking
because she's unoriginal. George says, not completely out of context,
'if you were inanimate, what would you be?" Sawyer says a gondola,
Ben's not sure but he's thinking, Marcy refuses to consider it, Sam
says a bottle rocket and I don't know Sam too well and I don't quite
know what he's getting at with that but it seems like a good answer. I
say a pontoon plane, but I don't really mean it. George says he'd be a
ridiculously giant statue of himself in a despotic pose that subversive
uprisers, when they tear it down, would be about as tall as the width
of his head.
Well put. George hands me his flask under the table — he's so
fucking classy, George is — and as stealthily as I can I take a few
healthy gulps pretending not to notice that Marcy's looking right at
me and I can tell she thinks I'm a sleaze and so I take a couple more
healthy gulps, 'cause fuck her, y'know? Sawyer says my name and
takes the flask away from me 'cause I'm not being very discreet
with it and after a quick nip he hands it back on over to George who
helps himself a bit to it and by this time I see the old couple a couple 3 |
booths down are really shooting the daggers our way but they should
really learn to mind their own fucking business. Mrs. Sunshine, our „
waitress, drops the check on our table without saying anything and
heads off to the old couple and I think fuck; that was a lot of whisky
I just drank.
(Whoa Dude! is right. More on page 6)
---
In this Issue!
A failed Interview...
Eric Schlosser is the author of the well-
known and widely acclaimed book, Fast
Food Nation. His new book is called Reefer
Madness. He is a journalistic writer, a documentor and a funnelor of facts and sources.
He is professional, but also charming, persuasive, able to cite facts and statistics in a
convincing way, is down-to-earth, is attractive, smokes pot.
We've never done interviews before, but,
we thought, how hard could it be?
(Take Pity on us, We are not men or Devo. Page 3)
Vikings and tanks...
Alright: if a man wearing a cape and a
Viking hat trying to recover two pounds
of uncut hashish buried right smack in the
middle of the Potsdam conference between
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin doesn't
strike you as entertainment, or as sounding
similar to one of your own dreams, then I'm
sorry, I don't know what to tell you. Because
it only gets better.
(Tanks What Tanks? Check out page 5)
And the result of our Questionnaire...
Freud is like a mother to me.
Some of you lovable readers were kind
enough to return the back page of last issue
with your humble pictures scrawled in the
boxes. These are not the same logo centric
wise asses that chose to write in the boxes
when the directions explicitly called for
pictures.
(The Back Page. Where it should be)
Interview: JT Leroy!
AA: After writing your two books, Sarah and The
Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, you now have your
band Thistle, which rocks by the way, how did the band
come about?
JT: All of us, Astor, Speedie and me are a family and
have lived together for about 6-7 years. We met through
various circles, and we started living together in our flat
with other folks, but the other folks always came and
went. Speedie got pregnant 6 years ago and that really
was the cohesive tape for the family border to solidify.
There were suddenly rules to abide by, boundaries and
I had to choose this family or the street. I think I chose
wisely. But sometimes I have to re-dedicate my choice.
We are all massive music fans, and we always fooled
around writing songs together. The way I threw myself
into being a better writer, Astor got really expert at Pro-
tools, a form of home recording on a computer. So he
started making demos of our songs.
Speedie is a muse for us, we write for her voice. She
did not like being our singer, we would drag her away
from whatever she was doing, throw up a shitty mic and
have her sing. She would curse us out, (we have it on
tape, it is really funny, like the Oasis brother's fighting) It
really was like we were the mad scientists experimenting.
Astor kept slaving and away and he'd play it for us —
what he pulled together and it was like, dang, this is pretty
good! And we'd play it for folks, like Shirley Manson
and they'd say, why aren't you getting it out there? And
we finally said, yeah, sure, why aren't we? Speedie was
like, do it without me, fuck y'all. She is a very forceful
personality and she was not into being drawn into this and
all it involves. But folks really responded to her voice, her
singing, but she did not feel it was what she wanted to do,
she felt like she was not a 'real' singer.
So we auditioned all these other singers, one woman
with a kick ass show stopping voice, from RENT, that
wanted to do it, but she sang the songs like Broadway
show tunes. There was a vulnerability missing. We
missed that quality that Speedie has in her voice and so
did everyone else we played it for. We tried other ideas,
Linda Perry came up with the idea of having all these
other musicians cover our songs for a record, and that
was exciting for a bit. But we were writing more, taking
it more seriously, getting more feedback from these home
demos, and Speedie was gaining self-confidence, and we
started getting courted by different management folks and
it was just obvious. This one management team, that we
ended up not working with, but they helped us realize, we
really have all the pieces for the most part, let's do it, little
Rascal style, put the show on our own dang selves!
AA: What musical, personal, or literary influences do
you see driving the sound and feeling behind the music
of Thistle?
(The Answer and More Answers on page 3)